Loot Boxes are officially banned in Belgium

[Zoltor]

I'm shocked no one has posted this yea. While the law was passed awhile ago, EA in their infinite arrogance decided to fight the government over such lol. We all knew how that was going to turn out, but now It's done, EA lost and thus are being forced to remove the ability to pay money for such.

This is pretty much the end for EA, especially when it comes to the fifa money cow.

Technically loot boxes are already illegal in Germany(don't know how EA has been getting away with it there), so expect them to put a end to it soon as well, and then expt pretty much all of Europe to jump onboard not long after that.

EA will finally be forced to improve upon the actual gameplay for a change. Since Fifa's main market is Europe, this is such a big deal

[Aidy]

Yea, these western so called AAA companies act as evil as the drug companies, yet they clearly can't hang with the big boys. Seriously everyone with any power at EA should of been assassinated long before it got to this point, instead the only people who get blamed at all, get to leave with these huge paychecks after they caused all the damage lol. As we all know, It's not even like the end of the trouble they cause, because for some dumb reason other companies will still accept them into these high position jobs, It's complete lunacy.

I can't fathom having so much hatred over something that is literally irrelevant. You need to take a chill pill before you have a heart attack.

[Animusisters]

Too bad, gambling is always so much fun.

[Merlin]

Seriously everyone with any power at EA should of been assassinated long before it got to this point

You went too far dude.... It is "should have" not "should of"

you disgusting backwater pre-cephaloid sea sponge.

[Zoltor]

I don't like governments reaching into games generally. But this whole story has been pretty funny to watch. What a bunch of weenies the AAA publishers are when push comes to shove.

Yea, these western so called AAA companies act as evil as the drug companies, yet they clearly can't hang with the big boys. Seriously everyone with any power at EA should of been assassinated long before it got to this point, instead the only people who get blamed at all, get to leave with these huge paychecks after they caused all the damage lol. As we all know, It's not even like the end of the trouble they cause, because for some dumb reason other companies will still accept them into these high position jobs, It's complete lunacy.

[Merlin]

I don't like governments reaching into games generally. But this whole story has been pretty funny to watch. What a bunch of weenies the AAA publishers are when push comes to shove.

[Zoltor]

My problem is this - if gamers as a community and a whole voted with their wallets, loot boxes and other awful crap like overpriced microtransactions etc wouldn't be as much of an issue. I COMPLETELY agree with the decisions to make these illegal and support it as well as believe companies like EA are abhorrent in their practices BUT, we do have SOME responsibility in the current environment, not in that any one person is singled out as being a cause but WE as a global group should have just not bought a game, ir stopped that subscription, or not visited the microtransaction store at all and the message would be clear - "get that crap out of our games". But to some degree we haven't, and slowly but surely, due to lack of aggressive push back from the gaming community, publishers found ways to get it in there that a large number of us have encouraged and supported with our wallets when the opposite should have been occuring.

I have taken Jeremy's advice, I wont buy anything till months after its release and I wont so much as open a store that I know contains microtransactions. If a game seems to be geared towards forcing or convingin me to NEED to spend more money to succeed in a game, I drop it and move on.

Well the biggest problem is, if even 10% of gamers buy into this crap, It's enough to let EA get away with it. Hell in Fifa's case, most of the people who buy it, aren't even gamers. Nearly all the gamers located in Europe are in France, and Germany. People literally buy a console just to play fifa(yea It's crazy, I know, but It's sadly true), so even if every gamer black listed EA, Fifa would still sell a lot.

As for the gamer side of things, lets be real, the average gamer is clearly dumber then a doorknob, because if they were smart people wouldn't be buying western "so called" AAA games at all, let alone from EA. The quality of Japanese and indie games are so much higher ingeneral.

[Omegapyrate]

This can only be a good thing, imho. If EA do the EA thing that they do and come up with some other scummy shit, hopefully the masses will FINALLY come to their senses, do what they should have done ages ago and just stop buying anything with EA's logo on it.

[Major]

My problem is this - if gamers as a community and a whole voted with their wallets, loot boxes and other awful crap like overpriced microtransactions etc wouldn't be as much of an issue. I COMPLETELY agree with the decisions to make these illegal and support it as well as believe companies like EA are abhorrent in their practices BUT, we do have SOME responsibility in the current environment, not in that any one person is singled out as being a cause but WE as a global group should have just not bought a game, ir stopped that subscription, or not visited the microtransaction store at all and the message would be clear - "get that crap out of our games". But to some degree we haven't, and slowly but surely, due to lack of aggressive push back from the gaming community, publishers found ways to get it in there that a large number of us have encouraged and supported with our wallets when the opposite should have been occuring.

I have taken Jeremy's advice, I wont buy anything till months after its release and I wont so much as open a store that I know contains microtransactions. If a game seems to be geared towards forcing or convingin me to NEED to spend more money to succeed in a game, I drop it and move on.

[Jokerthefoolio]

EA collects a lot of data on these sorts of things so I do think EA will find something just as scummy as lootboxes that work within in the law. Or I hope I'm wrong

[Zoltor]

Some progress but I doubt the suits won't just find some other way to scam us

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying EA are going to be good little boys now lol. EA will still be running all kinds of scams, but not only will none of them even come close to as bad as loot boxes, but they will be way more transparent then the mental manipulation that is loot boxes. Atleast that is until EA goes under due to not being able to trick even casuals anymore, and making a lot less money then ever, which will piss off shareholders.

[Temuldjin]

I still think that Belgium should have asked (officially true the channels) to have the CEO of EA extradited to Belgium so they could put him on trial and jail him.

[Thomas_JCG]

This is a small step, but we need more to get anywhere. Thankfully more countries around the world, including the US, are looking into this matter.

[Jokerthefoolio]

Some progress but I doubt the suits won't just find some other way to scam us

[Aidy]

I am curious what they will do if loot boxes are completely banned; more micro-transactions in other forms I'd imagine. It is an interesting turn of events to say the least.

Think I read somewhere that one of these games (Fortnite?) is now showing the content of loot boxes before you buy, so that would get around the gambling aspect of these regulations. People need to remember that it isn't micro-transactions that governments are trying to clamp down on but gambling.